I am interested in supporting sheep breeds that are on the brink of nonexistence...the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy keeps track of which animal breeds are threatened. While I was at SAFF several years ago, I found some lovely yarn from Ross Farms. The breed is Leicester Longwool.https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/leicester. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had Leicester Longwool sheep.
I was almost shocked at how soft the resulting shawl is.
I was almost shocked at how soft the resulting shawl is.
The pattern is Ridge and Furrow; I was so happy to find this pattern…I wanted something kind of earthy for this wool and this pattern delivered. However, I found it difficult to follow with a mix of knits and purls in the same row. I finally gave up on the purls, even after regraphing the pattern on my knitting software.
So once done, I set off to do the border. I just could not do the knit-onto-live-stitches border well. I tried and tried. After it sat on the shelf for nine months, I had a talk with myself. Convinced myself to do a simple edge treatment (k2tog yo) till the yarn was almost gone and then use a simple Evelyn A Clark edging. I love brown and turquoise, and added some flat-ish turquoise beads on the points. Took two weeks to finish is after it languished for nine months!
